Many liquid medicines for children and invalids are contained in, and must accordingly be dispensed from, container bottles. When dispensing the medicine from the bottle, it is frequently necessary to first draw medicine from the bottle into a syringe, to prepare a precise dosage for administration to the patient and to facilitate administering the medicine to the patient.
Administering liquid medicine with a syringe is often the optimal method of medicament administration for patients who have difficulty receiving medicine from, e.g., a spoon. Also, as stated above, a more precise dosage of liquid medicament can be administered with a syringe than with a spoon. For many liquid medicament therapies, administering a precise dosage is essential to success of the treatment.
Accordingly, needleless syringes have been provided for administering liquid medicament to patients. Typically, these syringes have a blunt-tipped hub which is advanced into the bottle. Then, the plunger of the syringe is manipulated to draw a precise amount of liquid through the hub into the syringe chamber. The syringe is next withdrawn from the bottle and used to administer the precise dosage of liquid medicament to the patient.
Unfortunately, in the case of many bottles, when the bottle is about one-third full, the liquid level falls below the hub of the syringe, even when the syringe is advanced as far as practicable into the bottle. Consequently, the bottle must be tipped to allow liquid to flow to the hub of the syringe. It can be appreciated that under these circumstances, liquid can easily spill out of the bottle, and it becomes difficult to draw the liquid medicament into the chamber of the syringe without also undesirably drawing air into the chamber. Further, it is cumbersome to tip the bottle while holding the syringe and simultaneously manipulating the plunger of the syringe to draw liquid into the chamber. Consequently, dispensing medicine from the bottle can be relatively time-consuming, particularly in view of the fact that the procedure noted above must ordinarily be performed repeatedly over the course of the therapy.
One example of an attempt to overcome some of the problems noted above is the device sold under the trade name "EZY Dose" by Apothecary Products Inc. of Minneapolis, Minn. The "EZY Dose" device includes a stopper with frusto-conical sides, for facilitating positioning the stopper into a variety of bottles in an interference fit with the neck of the bottle. The stopper is formed with a passageway, and a fitting is positioned at one end of the passageway for receiving the hub of a needleless syringe.
To dispense liquid from the bottle, the syringe is engaged with the fitting, the bottle is inverted, and the plunger of the syringe is manipulated to draw liquid into the syringe chamber. As can be appreciated from the disclosure above, however, one drawback of the "EZY Dose" device is that the bottle must be held in an inverted position while manipulating the plunger of the syringe. As stated above, this can be cumbersome.
Further, the end of the stopper on which the fitting is formed is not flush with the top edge of the bottle neck. Consequently, the cap of the bottle cannot be engaged with the bottle with the stopper positioned in the neck. Thus, the stopper must be positioned in the neck and then removed from the neck each time liquid medicament is to be dispensed from the bottle. Such repeated manipulation of the stopper is time-consuming.
As recognized by the present invention, a device can be provided for ameliorating the problems noted above. Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a device that can be engaged with a bottle and a syringe for facilitating drawing liquid from the bottle into the syringe. Another object of the present invention is to provide a liquid medicament dispensation device which is easy to use and cost-effective to manufacture.